


Three Ways in Which to Swowball

by karrenia_rune



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen, new ice age, race against the clock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:42:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HG succeeds in starting another ice age and the Warehouse agents are among the few survivors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Ways in Which to Swowball

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clare_dragonfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/gifts).



Disclaimer: Warehouse 13 belongs to the Sy Fy Channel, its creators and producers etc, they are not mine. Round 6 Apocalypthon written for claredragonfly  
Summary: HG succeeds in starting another ice age and the Warehouse agents are among the few survivors.  
"Three Ways in Which to Snowball"

 

Slogging through snow drifts that rose up to her shins was not anywhere near Myka Bering’s list of top-ten fun things to do. The fact that that the geo-thermal engines that had been installed inside of the warehouse was a comforting thought, but only for as long as she allowed it to be.

If it was cold here on the relative flat land of Kansas just think of how much colder it would be back home in Colorado. She considered this for a moment and wondered if she could risk giving them a call. but then decided against it. For one thing it would be breaking the rules, and for another in the intense cold cell-phone service was spotty at best. Stemming from the moment that they had failed to prevent HG from bringing about the what had now been deemed the Second Little Ice Age, many of those hardy souls who had been accustomed to toughing out severe winters and had scoffed at ‘snow-birds’ who went south and only came back when it was warm again; now found themselves forced into making similar choices. Myka, hunching her shoulders and forcing her face down into the muffler wrapped around her neck realized that that was being a bit self-indulgent to worry about her parents; they were survivors and they had taught her to be a survivor as well.

The roar of a motor engine struggling as she was to traverse the terrain broke her out of her meandering thoughts, then she turned around to see Mrs. Fredricks car pull up in the path that she and her partner Peter Lattimer had laboriously dug out of the snow.  
The older woman was bundled up as she was and her bee-hive of dark hair hidden underneath a cap, “Well, Ms. Bering, I suppose we should look on the bright side. Now, those who predicted the end of the world the melting of the polar ice-caps can cease their wailing and beating of breasts.”

“Hello, to you, too, Mrs. Fredricks,” replied Myka softly.

“Yes, well, shall we go inside? I suspect even Mr. Latimer will not be inclined to linger out here and engage in a snowball fight.”

“You know, Pete, do you think a little thing like sub-zero temperature would stop him?” she asked. Mrs. Fredricks tilted her head to one side and then brought up her gloved hands to rub them together to get her circulation going as she considered this possible not highly probably scenario:

“He just might be crazy enough to do it.”

“Let’s get inside,” Myka agreed.  
***  
They found the others already gathered in Arthur Nielsen’s office gathered around a table strewn with documents and real-time satellite topographical maps of the most severely hit areas by the exponential drop in temperature.

“Is there any change HG is still alive?”

“Highly unlikely, but then shed did seem to have an uncanny ability to cheat death.” Arthur Nielsen said reasonably, bundled in up a great black coat given to him by the newest and youngest member of the team, Claudia Donavan; leaving only his hands, and the top of his shaggy hair visible reminded Peter Latimer as nothing more than old, teddy bear. Familiar and reassuring, but even he in his own free-spirited devil-may-care way knew that there was much more to him than that.

“Emphasis on the cheating part,” said Pete hotly.

“Be that as it may, is there any way to do anything about it?” Myka asked.

“The world is awfully big place, too big to prevent the Ice Age from happening. We knew that from the outset…”

“This pregnant pause in your discourse indicates a big But, coming up,” interrupted Pete.

“Mr. Lattimer, if you would wait until I have finished!” exclaimed Mrs. Fredricks.  
He nodded and lapsed back into his seat.

“On the way in I made an off-hand remark to Agent Bering about the lack of need to worry about the melting of the polar ice-caps.”

“I don’t understand,” replied Pete. Claudia Donavan stirred restlessly as the inklings of a notion began to percolate in her mind; and this tingling was not in any way related to the fact that she believed that she was beginning to lose the sensation in her extremities. If she was even close to figuring what Mrs. Fredricks implied by that last statement than it meant she was proposing a brilliant, audacious, and even dangerous plan.

In the back of her mind Claudia knew that maybe just maybe this time there really was nothing they could do.

‘Surely history had shown that mankind had once gotten through a previous little Ice Age none the worse for wear but that was back in the 17th century, or was it the 13th? In any case, although this one was man-made and just getting started, was it their job now to save the world. Maybe the world could save itself for a change? Surely?

She shook her head and returned his attention to the discussion. The shocked look on Myka Bering’s face seemed to provided substance to her own unvoiced concerns. “Oh My God!” the other woman exclaimed. “Tell me you are not actually considering doing what I think you are!' Leena had gone out without anyone noticing and come back in with a tray piled high with steaming coffee and tea mugs, that serene look on her face and bearing resistant to becoming fazed in any way.

Claudia had often wondered how Leena managed it; it was a neat trick.

“Wait a darn sec!” exclaimed Pete. “What are we talking about here?”

“Bear in mind it is just a hypothesis at this point,” Mrs. Fredricks remarked calmly,” but it does have merit. It is possible that we could bring down or even halt the precipitous drop in global temperature by instituting gradual drops in the overall surface temperature at the polar ice caps.

“Artie,” Myka replied. “Don’t you remember how everyone kept saying that if that happened most if not all of the worlds’ coastal cities would flood.”A  
Arthur Nielsen, allowed himself a tight smile at the familiar nickname given to him by his agents but then put on a sterner look on his face. “Yes, but that was mostly fear-mongering at work even among the best-intentioned of environmentalists and politicians and what have you.”

“What were are proposing,” broke in Mrs. Fredricks, “is to introduce a gradual intermittent amounts introductions of carbon monoxide in the upper atmosphere of the ice caps.”

“For the sake of argument, just how are we going to do that?” Pete demanded as he lurched to his feet, nearly upsetting Leena’s cat in the process.

“We have a private jet standing by to transport you and your team to Greenland, and from there to Norway; we plan to the northern latitudes first as a way of testing out the theory. If it works we’ll move on to Antarctica.” Arthur sighed and replied. “It’s a plan, and a good one at a time when there are precious few resources, and seeing that we can’t think of anything else at this late hour, I say we go for it.”

“I guess so,” Myka and Pete replied almost simultaneously and then both started and sat back down in their seats. “When do we leave?” Myka asked.

“Two days from now, we have finished equipping you and the jet,” Artie replied.  
**  
Greenland, present day, three days later

Over their comm-links slightly muffled by both distance and the cold weather they heard Claudia Donavan’s voice. “How come I’m the one who drew the short straw and got stuck monitoring your progress from the surface? Am I or aren’t I a full-fledged member of this team?”

“You are, but it’s equally important that someone remain on the surface,” Myka replied.

“Claudia, that way, you can fend off the authorities, keep an eye or ear on us, and anyone else that might want to take an undue interest in our activities,” Pete added.

“Okay, okay, I just wanted clarification on that point,” replied Claudia.

“Getting in was the easy part, I wouldn’t lay odds on the getting out part,” Pete griped.

“Pete, stop complaining, they let us in didn’t they. I don’t think they bought the whole Secret Service act, but under the circumstances I don’t think I would either if were in their shoes.  
It’s a global emergency even if they Greenland government won’t or refuses to believe it.”

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” Myka sighed.

“What’s eating you?” Pete asked.

“Nothing,” she replied.

“Come on, I’m supposed to be the intuitive one, remember. Something’s obviously bothering and I think that we’ve friends and partners long enough to know that if you want to talk about, I’m here for you,” said Pete.

“Okay, maybe I do need to get this off my chest, before it locks me up inside so tight that I won’t be able to function anymore,” she sighed as she shimmed down the side of the ice-shaft and dug her ice pick into the hard-packed side to come up alongside Pete where he dangled supported by a harness that matched her own. “It’s our fault we’re in this mess!

“You mean several meters down an ice-shaft?”

“Not that, you idiot!” she exclaimed and the heat of her anger and the reflexive instinct to play off her partner’s nonchalant attitude and her own need for order, made the cold somewhat less,

“You know we couldn’t stop this from happening and now we’re doing something both dangerous and reckless to salve our consciences? Or because we just save the world on a regular basis?”

“Myka,” Pete replied with unaccustomed gravity. “I’m angry too, at HG mostly, but at me, too for, failing to see this coming and doing something anything right now keeps from, how did you put it? Oh yeah, freezing up completely.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, we go forward and see where it takes us,” he replied with a grin.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” she quoted although for the life of her Mica could not recall where she had heard that particular quote, ‘Probably from a Shakespeare play, “she thought.

Several hours and having complete delivery of the packed carbon monoxide and their corresponding delivery systems and ascended up through the ice shaft and back onto the surface, both were sweaty and tired from the exertion. “I sure hope this works.”

“So do I,” Pete replied. “You’d best call Artie and have him come pick us up. He gave her a thumbs-up gesture with his heavily-gloved hands. “One day, only two to go.”

“We’ll celebrate later,” Claudia added with a grin.  
***  
Norway, present day

3,000 feet above sea level in an aero-plane skimming over a beautiful if rugged landscape of lakes, fjords, glaciers and grazing land and Myka wondered if their plan would even work, much less make a dent in the bitter cold. The almost invisible trail of contained and hermitically sealed payloads of carbon monoxide trailed out behind them like the wake of a sailing vessel. At this remote northern latitude they only saw the sun for a few brief hours a day, and they had been at their given task for three days.

“Look on the bright side, at least it’s not getting any colder,” Pete remarked at one point, peering at the blinking controls of his console.

“No matter what happens, Pete, I can always count on you to point out the positive,” Myka said.

“Yeah, well. You know me.”

“Well, if you’re finished jabbing, I think we’re getting results already. This way, kiddies,” she said walking off in an easterly direction her hand-held scanner registering appreciable drops in ambient surface temperature. “Hey, guys, two done, one to go.” Antarctica,

Huddled together in the base camp tent, Myka and Pete, who had normally kept a strictly platonic working relationship were pressed as close as their snow-suited bodies go could for warmth and protection from the elements. The sheet of ice that had led to their being trapped in the first place had snapped underneath the weight of their snow mobile and gear and sent them free-falling into the exposed crevasse.

Claudia, mounted on her own snow-mobile some distance away, had only seen them go in at the very last second. She had reacted quickly and efficiently and pulled them out. The equipment was a wash; but on the whole it seemed a rather small price to pay to keep their lives.

Conclusion

“There’s one thing that concerned me, going into this,” said Myka as she sat in a chair and sipped the tea that Leena had brewed for all of them.

The cups of steaming liquid were accepted as eagerly and gratefully as if they had not had anything to drink in the last several days, except water and sparingly. If Claudia had not reacted as quickly and efficiently as she had they might very well have died of one of several things: exposure, thirst, hunger, or hypothermia. The last Myka had thought might be rather ironic, because they had been attempting to stave the new little Ice Age and that very warmth was deceptive before they finally were drained of every ounce of will to fight it off.

“Thank you, Claudia, thank you, Leena,” Myka murmured.

“Hey, what about me?” Artie Nielsen said mock-severely, trying to mask his own relief at the safe return of all of his agents.

“Welcome, all and well done, all,” Mrs. Fredricks replied.

“It’s good to be home.” Pete smiled. “Can I say it? Score one for the good guys!”


End file.
